Fresh food

The challenges for fresh food are similar to the ones of food in general with major emphasis on shelf-life extension and food safety. A properly stored cucumber wrapped in flexible plastic lasts around fourteen days compared to three days for one that isn’t wrapped. This example illustrates the importance of packaging in the shelf-life expansion.

For fresh food, the packaging trends are focused around combo packs, fresh snacking packaging solutions putting fruits and vegetables in single serve containers, packaging performance to give fresh products an edge over lower cost frozen food and last, pre-packaged food can come in bright containers, colorful boxes and an overall pretty looking appearance providing nutrition information and seducing the new consumers generation. Finally, in recent years, consumer confidence in the safety of the food supply has been lagging. Food manufacturers would like to mitigate risks and improve in this area. For many businesses, food safety and preventive efforts especially with fresh food will continue to be top of mind in 2018-22.

Food products are packed using a number of various materials to protect them from adverse environmental conditions. The packaging is required for the transportation to avoid any physical damage and waste. Like for other food segments, the need to minimize material and energy use, and close the gaps in the circular economy is on everyone's agenda. Brands and packaging companies are introducing new cost-effective and biodegradable packaging solutions. The advance in new materials will further accelerate the development of the fresh food sector.

Packaging for fresh food is a major priority for BOBST. The BOBST DRO family has been designed to accommodated the most complicated jobs such as fruit plates and banana boxes. The range of machines enables complex designs combined with high graphic quality. The BOBST DRO 1624/28/32 NT RS is also the most productive press on the market. For brand owners requiring very high quality graphics incl. images in substrates from micro-flute to double-wall, MASTERFLEX-HD is the most powerful flexo printing press in its category. This perfect flexographic alternative to offset printing enables you to manage up to 8 colors with outstanding sheet transport and super inking control. For even more demanding customers, the new BOBST THQ FlexoCloud Technology is the most advanced one-pass platform delivering quality, productivity at low operating costs. Fresh food packaging production requires fast delivery and the BOBST FFG 924 or 1228 are the most productive machines delivering up to 33.000 boxes per hour. If your need larger boxes, the FFG 1232 & 1636 NT RS are the best solutions in the market today.

Complex boxes such as fruit and vegetable baskets require fast and precise production. Typical end user packaging for fresh food requires food safe packaging, often grease barriers or humidity resistance in combination with printed graphics from the brand owner. Fruit and fresh meat packed in trays requires strong packaging for heavy products. BOBST in-line laminators are now capable to efficiently produce litho-laminated double wall board in all combinations. Very light paper quality in combination with grease barrier and sensitive printing can also be easily combined in the BOBST in-line litho-laminator lines.

For fresh food, boxes can take almost any shape. The BOBST die-cutter EXPERTCUT 145 PER is the perfect match for medium volume production and unbeatable product quality thanks to a precise and powerful register. Even high-volume productions find a solution with the most automated and productive die-cutter MASTERCUT 145 PER capable to run up to 9'500 s/h. When it comes to flat-bed die-cutting of corrugated board and litho-laminators, MASTERCUT 1.7/2.1 is the pioneering solution that delivers higher running speeds, fewer stops, shorter make-readies, and matchless quality. With the most versatile and productive folder-gluer MASTERFOLD 110, BOBST offers the perfect configuration to deal with this challenge. The EASYFEEDER / BATCH INVERTER 4 will feed the blanks faster and easier. The in-line inspection system ACCUCHECK will guarantee zero-fault packaging. The devices SPEEDWAVE 3 -for crash-locks and SPEEDHOOK -for 4 & 6-corners will save you time and deliver exceptional folding quality; while the high performance packer CARTONPACK 4 increases your productivity by automatically filling your shipping containers.   

Beside folding carton and corrugated boxes, films are in high demand for fresh food. The BOBST EXPERT K5 can produce more rolls per day of film used in the fresh food market segments and provides significant cost saving innovations. The BOBST VISION K5 is able to handle many different film types including heat sensitive and thin gauge substrates. The Alubond process for better metal adhesion on the substrate guarantees the protection of the products against deterioration. The BOBST machines in the CO coating range deliver superior quality in coating barrier lacquers and varnishes. All flexible materials used for fresh food packaging can be printed on the VISION CI, EXPERT CI and MASTER CI flexo presses. Both presses are designed to deliver superior print quality on all kinds of flexible materials including thinnest plastic films. The EXPERT RS 6003 and VISION RS 5003 are ideally suited depending on the chosen press automation. The NOVA D 800 LAMINATOR duplex laminator delivers excellent results for the in-register coating of antifog coatings for products such as ready-to-eat salads and vegetables.